Part Two - The Holistic Army: The War Against Rigid Linear Thinking

Military planners in the United States are actively engaged in designing the techniques, equipment, and organization of forces for operations in the early decades of the Twenty-First Century. Since the end of the Cold War, and indeed since the Gulf War, the very purpose of a military establishment has been dramatically reshaped. Peacekeeping, humanitarian, and multi-national interventions are now undertaken, on a scale unlike anything in the past.


Soldiers also work under an umbrella of revolutionary increases in information and its access. At the same time, the current military establishment in America is troubled by dramatic and public difficulties inherent in dealing with urgent themes in American life -- ethnic diversity, gender equality, sexual harassment and abuse, and sexual preference. The personal attributes needed by modern warriors for success in battle, like the population from which those warriors are drawn, seem to have changed profoundly.


Many of these dilemmas can be seen as manifestations of a broader, long-standing human dichotomy regarding military life: the tension between values of autonomous freedom of personal action versus the traditional stereotype of military regimentation and suspension of individual autonomy. This article will outline in general the applicability of Gestalt Theory to military problems, point out certain aspects of military thinking that already employ a Gestalt-style, holistic approach, and address the particular dichotomy of Obedience versus Autonomy. Ethical considerations will be included at certain points, though rigorous ethical review of militarism is not the purpose of the article.

"Doctrine" is a term for the broad philosophical, organizational, training, and operational principles, policies, and plans that officially shape the functions of the military at all levels. The Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) publishes a pamphlet, "Force XXI Operations" (TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5, 1 August 1994).


The Army already knows the applicability of Gestalt principles to military problems, though perhaps not in so many words. TRADOC 525-5 is rich with direct references to the expected need for holistic training and reasoning skills for soldiers, from the top levels all the way down to the "muddy boots." No longer able to focus only on skill in one aspect of combat, or even combat alone, tomorrow's soldier will need to shift smoothly from warfighting to humanitarian functions, often in the same operation, or in close sequence. In addition, the context for these operations has become varied, unpredictable, and more lethal than ever. Operations will involve both allies and adversaries from all possible types of culture, language, and technological development.


The January-February, 1997, issue of FA Journal [Field Artillery] provides a vivid panorama of the paradoxical Gestalten of today's complex battlefield. Editor Patrecia Slayden Hollis interviewed Major General William L. Nash (Commanding General, 1st Armored Division and Task Force Eagle, Bosnia-Herzegovina) and Colonel Gregory Fontenot (Commander, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division and Task Force Eagle). Listen to the striking dichotomies in current military life. General Nash discusses the importance of personnel safety in combat: "Commanders must take care of the sons and daughters entrusted to them to accomplish the nation's military missions. Force protection multiplies combat power..." (p. 7) Safety multiplies combat power.

These quotes, and many more, reflect a facility with holistic, paradoxical communication and experience in military action fully compatible with the techniques and insights of Gestalt Theory. Indeed, they are inexplicable without a holistic viewpoint.

Colonel Fontenot explains the crucial importance of military prowess in keeping peace: "In this type of mission, looks count. So we were calm, professional and deliberate without being provocative. We were tough-minded without "swaggering" (challenging them to take us on) or without making them feel small." (p.10) And later, "If part of your peace enforcing mission is show-of-force with the goal of not having to fight, then you need to show overwhelming force." (p. 11)


These quotes, and many more, reflect a facility with holistic, paradoxical communication and experience in military action fully compatible with the techniques and insights of Gestalt Theory. Indeed, they are inexplicable without a holistic viewpoint.


Here's a sample of obvious facility in maneuvering with and among sharply defined figures in an emotionally charged, lethal human background. When chairing potentially confrontive meetings between representatives of the "former warring factions," Colonel Fontenot intervened thus:

Occasionally, about 30 to 40 minutes into a meeting, loud jets would pass over. At that point, I would become annoyed and tell my JMC deputy (Joint Military Commission) -- who, by the way, was my FSCOORD [fire support coordinator] -- to get rid of those jets. Then, all of a sudden, the jets or other "annoying" show-of-force systems would disappear. The faction leaders respect the fact that the IFOR commander can summon or dismiss considerable force... (p. 10)

Linear, stereotypic thinking would have suggested a direct track of telling the faction leaders what to do, followed by threats or attacks to make them do it. The result, of course, would be bloodshed. Holistic, paradoxical agility offered a successful alternative: secure the attention and respect of the combatants by the instant _dismissal_ of the overwhelming force.


This type of radically creative thinking is not a lucky accident. It's official policy. Section 4-1 a.(1) of TRADOC 525-5 says, "Doctrine will continue to provide a holistic basis for the Army to incorporate new ideas, technologies, and organizational designs [to help leaders] become the adaptive, creative problem-solvers required for future military operations."


In Section 4-1 c.(2), "[leaders] must have such intuitive skills as vision, innovation, adaptability, and creativity and the ability to simplify complexities and clarify ambiguities -- all while operating under stress." The Army must "train and develop leaders who are intuitive, agile-minded, innovative, and disciplined."


These are aspects of healthy human functioning and organizational interaction that sound startlingly like propositions from a Gestalt Theoretical viewpoint. Such a view contrasts sharply with the wide-spread stereotype of the military mind as one-tracked, uncreative, devoted to force and violence alone, rigid, intimidation oriented, and preoccupied with authority and obedience, both blind.


Rigid military thinking is a real problem. Adam Yarmolinsky, in The Military Establishment , discusses the issue, quoting Morris Janowitz (The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait):

"The 'military mind' has been charged with traditionalism and with a lack of inventiveness. The new doctrine stressed initiative and continuous innovation. The 'military mind' has been charged with an inclination toward ultranationalism and ethnocentrism. Military professionals are being taught to de-emphasize ethnocentric thinking, since ethnocentrism is counter to national military policy. The 'military mind' has been charged with being disciplinarian. The new doctrine seeks to deal with human factors in combat and large-scale organization in a manner conforming to contemporary thought on human relations."

Note the dates. Yarmolinsky, writing while some of the bloodiest American fighting was underway in Southeast Asia, was quoting an author who wrote in 1960, well before American combat units (other than advisors) had deployed to Viet Nam. Clearly, the dichotomy between the need for human-oriented, versatile and agile thinking and the persistent figure of rigid, jingoistic authoritarianism is not new.

Nor is it easily resolved. Yarmolinsky goes on to address the authoritarian pole of the dichotomy. He presents an alternative argument, by Samuel P. Huntington (_The Soldier and the State_, 1957), who suggests that a more "civilianized" military is a paradoxical risk to democracy, more likely to develop and follow its own agenda, and less responsive to civilian direction. A professional, authoritarian military, on the other hand, does what it is told by its civilian government. Thus, the dichotomy between the detrimental human aspects of authoritarianism, and the beneficial human aspects of democratic autonomy and self-direction (initiative) in a military apparatus becomes less simple to evaluate.

TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5 itself alludes to the general problem of inflexible thinking in the U.S.Army, relating "Sir Basil Liddell Hart's dictum -- that the real challenge is not to put a new idea into the military mind but to put the old one out..." (1-2 b.) This in itself is a well understood issue in Gestalt Theory. Problems in the organism's (or organization's) functioning routinely occur as a result of incomplete closure or "destruction" of an obsolete figure. But the particular dichotomy of interest here is that between initiative and obedience.


Even when the initiative is expected to be "within the intent" of the Commander, as TRADOC 525-5 often describes it (e.g, Section 4-1 c.), the dichotomy continues in regard to the possible center of the reasoning. Is the subordinate a mere instrument of the commander's will -- the commander's eye, ear, hand, and weapon -- with the commander doing all the thinking and deciding? Or is the subordinate to function as an independent warfighting unit?


Force XXI plans specify that the expected "Information Battlefield" of the first decades of the next century will require near-total access to information at all levels. The soldier in the mud will draw down the same battle information as the General in the field headquarters, able to shuttle as needed from the "Big Picture" down to the individual soldier's situation, and back. Authority to act on the basis of this information (and thus, to not-act) is expected to be far more widely delegated.


General Nash discusses this in action in Bosnia-Herzegovina, saying "... our proficiency at decentralized operations is a strength of the American Army -- our junior leaders can take the commander's intent, plan the mission and execute at their levels." (FA Journal, p. 6)


While TRADOC 525-5 presents this decentralized authority as a positive challenge to be met, it also argues strongly that the military in fact has no choice. The increasingly clever, lethal and chaotic battlefield of the present, and more so the future, demands the agility of a decentralized command structure.